[SecurityRatty] tag: sniper

Pentagon Shoots $22 Million Into Guided Bullet Tech

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:45:00 +0000

What if a sniper could fire a bullet that changed course in mid-flight to hit its target? The Pentagon hands out nearly $22 million to try to find out.

Pentagon Shoots $22 Million into Guided Bullet Tech

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:20:02 +0000

Darpa, the Defense Department's far-out research arm, announced a pair of contracts yesterday, to start designing a super, .50-caliber sniper rifle that fires guided bullets. Lockheed Martin recieved $12.3 million for the "EXACTO" (EXtreme ACcuracy Tasked Ordnance) project, while Teledyne Scientific & Imaging, LLC got another $9.5 million.

From warzones to strip clubs, the truth comes out for a former First Lady and a Pastor.

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:57:00 +0000

Last week in the Washington Post, "The Fact Checker" awarded former first lady, Hillary Clinton, four "Pinocchios" (real whoppers)for claiming to have come under sniper fire during a photo op. in Bosnia. On Thursday, Michael Dobbs once again awarded Senator Clinton another "poker" of Pinocchios.

This time she took heat for claiming that her trip to Bosnia was the first visit to a "war zone" by a first lady since World War II. Her claim is considered completly inaccurate, since Pat Nixon made a trip to Saigon in July 1969. At the time, South Vietnam was an actual, not a "potential" war zone in the aftermath of the 1968 Tet offensive.

The article also made mention of Barbara Bush's visit to Saudi Arabia in 1990, two months before the Persian Gulf war began. Speaking about Senator Clinton's claim that her aircraft made a tactical landing back in 1996, the pilot of the aircraft had a different memory. Retired Air Force Col. William Changose said that it was not true that they took evasive measures to avoid sniper fire. The Colonel went on to say that: "not only were there no bullets flying, there wasn't even a bumblebee flying around".

It seems that Senator Clinton is not the only one in the public eye to suffer from Pinocchioitis. Apparently the Police in Riverside, Ohio found a Pastor who had gone missing from his home in western New York, since Wednesday the 26th of March, after telling his wife that he was going to Best Buy to have his computer fixed. Officers found the Pastor at a strip club called the "K.C. Lounge", partying like a New York Govenor.

We often hear people in the media complaining about the negative effects that Rap music has on our youth. One wonders why we are now not hearing more complaining about the so-called role models getting caught with their pants down, so to speak. At least with the likes of rappers and other "bad boy" entertainers, what you see, is what you get. It's little wonder that so many people are comfortable telling lies during interviews and embellishing resumes in order to get hired and get ahead.

When I was going to school, the "dog ate my homework" excuse was used but not believed. Also, it tended to get used by children who had not yet reached their teens. I think that even children of that age these days will be able to see through these poorly constructed falsehoods that our "role models" would have us believe.

Unbelievable.

If politicians can imagine sniper fire, don't be surprised what people can imagine on their resumes.

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:09:00 +0000

Why is it that so many people these days are mis-speaking and mis-remembering? Shortly after Hillary Clinton's animated version of coming under sniper fire in Bosnia, she now tells us she "mis-spoke".

I first read about this story in last Saturday's Washington Post, in an article written by Michael Dobbs. Mr. Dobbs, who visited the Tuzla air base in Bosnia, much earlier than Senator Clinton, spoke of the risk being minimal, particularly at a heavily fortified U.S. air base like Tuzla.

The report went on to say that instead of the former first lady having to run with her head down, dodging sniper fire, the party was greeted by smiling U.S. and Bosnian officals. The paper even carried a picture of Mrs. Clinton bending down to kiss a local girl.

Mr. Dobbs concludes by saying that Clinton's tale of sniper fire is simply not credible, as photographs and video taken at the time told a very different story. Senator Clinton's story was then awarded with "Four Pinocchios", signifying a "real whopper".

As someone who spent many years in the former Yugoslavia during the war, I can attest to the fact that you know when you are coming under sniper or mortar fire, there is nothing to imagine. One thing you wouldn't do, is to stand around taking photographs for the press. I am sure that there were plenty of people around the country last week who believed Senator Clinton - she certainly seemed very credible the way she recalled the dangerous event. Now she just looks like another used car salesman who got caught turning back the clock on a used car to hide its true miles.

Like I tell clients all the time, do not be in a hurry to judge a book by its cover. Just because someone appears to have a fantastic resume, does not mean that everything in that resume is true. Around 40% of all resumes contain lies or "miswritings" as they are probably being called now.

If a former First Lady (and one who is looking to be the country's first female President at that) can tell a "real whopper", expect it from anyone. Remember, paper has never been known to refuse ink.

Risk of Knowing Too Much About Risk

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 03:24:50 +0000

Interesting:

Dread is a powerful force. The problem with dread is that it leads to terrible decision-making.
Slovic says all of this results from how our brains process risk, which is in two ways. The first is intuitive, emotional and experience based. Not only do we fear more what we can't control, but we also fear more what we can imagine or what we experience. This seems to be an evolutionary survival mechanism. In the presence of uncertainty, fear is a valuable defense. Our brains react emotionally, generate anxiety and tell us, "Remember the news report that showed what happened when those other kids took the bus? Don't put your kids on the bus."

The second way we process risk is analytical: we use probability and statistics to override, or at least prioritize, our dread. That is, our brain plays devil's advocate with its initial intuitive reaction, and tries to say, "I know it seems scary, but eight times as many people die in cars as they do on buses. In fact, only one person dies on a bus for every 500 million miles buses travel. Buses are safer than cars."

Unfortunately for us, that's often not the voice that wins. Intuitive risk processors can easily overwhelm analytical ones, especially in the presence of those etched-in images, sounds and experiences. Intuition is so strong, in fact, that if you presented someone who had experienced a bus accident with factual risk analysis about the relative safety of buses over cars, it's highly possible that they'd still choose to drive their kids to school, because their brain washes them in those dreadful images and reminds them that they control a car but don't control a bus. A car just feels safer. "We have to work real hard in the presence of images to get the analytical part of risk response to work in our brains," says Slovic. "It's not easy at all."

And we're making it harder by disclosing more risks than ever to more people than ever. Not only does all of this disclosure make us feel helpless, but it also gives us ever more of those images and experiences that trigger the intuitive response without analytical rigor to override the fear. Slovic points to several recent cases where reason has lost to fear: The sniper who terrorized Washington D.C.; pathogenic threats like MRSA and brain-eating amoeba. Even the widely publicized drunk-driving death of a baseball player this year led to decisions that, from a risk perspective, were irrational.